A knock on the door makes me jump.
“You fall in, Miss Riley?”
I roll my eyes, though I know Owen can’t see me. When I open the door, he’s standing there, arms crossed, and I try my best to ignore the enticing look on his face.
I shrug. “I did what everyone does when they use the bathroom. I texted my friends.”
He raises a brow, and I push past him.
“Gala invitations go out tomorrow. Do you want to check them before I send them?” I ask, avoiding all other subjects aside from the work I was sent here to do.
“No need. I trust you.”
There’s that damn word again: trust. My gut twists. I’ve always played the fraud, but this time it doesn’t feel right. Like an itch I can’t scratch—persistent and getting worse with each moment I spend with him.
The worst part is: I’m starting to want him to trust me, and I’m finding myself beginning to trust him. It’s beyond logic and reason, and I can’t snap myself out of it.
“It’s too close to home, Dec. I can’t separate the role I’m supposed to be playing from who I really am.”
Silence takes up the space on the other side of the phone while I pace back and forth on the cold tile floor of my soulless apartment.
“I can put someone else on it,” he finally offers, but he doesn’t sound happy about it.
“I’m already in. It’d be too much work to pull me out and replace me.” It’s the truth, and I’ve already put Declan through too much to ask that of him. He deserves for this case to go smoothly. Hell, I deserve for this case to go smoothly, too.
There’s more silence on the other end.
“Have you made an appointment with a counselor yet?” he finally asks.
Shit.
“Yes,” I lie. It’s not that I don’t want to make an appointment. It’s more that I don’t have the time to do so.
He takes an audible breath. “Did you finish your trialreport?”
Now it’s my turn to be silent for a moment.
“No,” I say at last.
“I want you to take the weekend to do something for yourself. No work.” I go to complain, but he cuts me off. “No, Nova. Give Ella everything you have on Mr. Mills so far, and she can continue the research. I want you to take two measly days off and do something for yourself.”
An awkward silence ensues again.
“Nova?” he finally asks, his voice betraying his worry.
“What the hell am I going to do, Dec? The CIA is my whole life.”
Declan sighs heavily. “Call Jax. That’s an order. Or go out with someone from your new job.”
Declan knows Jax, and Jax knows Declan. Though my career is supposed to be a secret, certain people are contractual exceptions. Jax knows what I do for a living, even if he doesn’t know the details, and he’s under contract to keep it a secret from everyone else.
“And further the lie I’m living? To be ripped out of their lives after I put their boss in jail and cause them all to lose their jobs? No thanks,” I say miserably.
“You haven’t had a problem before.”
“That’s because everyone I put behind bars was a murdering rapist asshole!” I shout before lowering my voice to almost a whisper. “Not a hot Robin Hood who murders rich bastards then steals from them and gives to the poor.”
Declan lets out an awkward laugh. “You seem to be ignoring the murdering part.”
